Grace in the Ruins

Introduction

A friend of mine is one of the hardest-working people I know.

He would work fifty hours a week, polishing and grinding metal for a process engineering firm.

He works in the shop where they weld, polish, and grind metal boxes that are later wired and installed in Dr. Pepper and Perry’s Ice Cream plants.

It’s demanding work… loud, heavy, and hard on the body.

One day, though, he was hit head-on by a driver who was texting instead of watching the road.

The accident left him with permanent injuries and unable to return to the only kind of work he’d ever known.

Suddenly, this man who had worked his whole life depended on society's collective care...

Programs like disability benefits, healthcare coverage, and SNAP food assistance.

Programs that exist to uphold the dignity of people when life falls apart.

Programs that say to the weary, “You still matter.”

But today, the promise is growing fragile.

Because of the ongoing government shutdown, the USDA warns that over 42 million Americans may lose or see delayed SNAP benefits in November.

That includes nearly seventy thousand people right here in Onondaga County...

...neighbors in our own city who rely on these benefits to feed their families.

Right here in Syracuse, where nearly one in three residents lives in poverty...

...the potential loss of those benefits will be devastating.

The energy on Thursday and Friday was radically different downstairs...

People are afraid...

...afraid of how they will feed their families...

Parents are wondering how long their groceries will stretch.

Seniors are worried about whether they’ll have to choose between food and medicine...

...and those of us who serve through ministries like the Interfaith Care Collective are afraid too...

...afraid that the need will grow faster than our resources can stretch.

Because when systems fail...

...when leaders are more worried about the TikTok reels and soundbites than hungry children...

When systems fail...

...when those in the halls of power have never tasted what it means to struggle to make ends meet...

When systems fail...

...when partisan gridlock turns compassion into collateral damage...

That’s when… the vulnerable feel it first.

They are the ones who lose access to food, medicine, and stability.

They are the ones who bear the brunt of what the prophet Joel might call “the locusts of injustice.”

There are times when the locusts of injustice swarm, devouring what sustains life and dignity.

When such occurs, Scripture reminds us that God’s Spirit stirs within those very ruins, awakening us to repentance.

...and so… the question for us to wrestle with today is...

When the locusts of injustice have stripped life bare,

how do we respond to the Spirit’s call to repentance

rather than retreat into despair or denial?

Name What Has Been Devoured

To repent is first to name what has been devoured.

To name what has been devoured.

The prophet Joel stands before a people who have just endured catastrophe.

He doesn’t gloss over it.

He doesn’t pretend the fields are fine.

He names the reality:

“The swarming locust has eaten,

the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,

my great army that I sent against you.”

The land bears the scars of devastation...

...barns are silent...

...vats are empty...

...the ground still smells of dust and hunger...

Today it might be something else...

...trade wars and tariffs that drive up costs and choke off markets

...farmers who work from dawn to dusk only to see their profits devoured by policies made far away...

...families choosing between groceries and prescriptions...

...neighbors rationing insulin while others pray the ambulance arrives before the bill does...

Yet even as the prophet speaks of abundance...

...overflowing wine and oil...

...the sound of the locusts still hums in their memory.

You can almost see the people standing in the fields that once fed them...

...their hands open and trembling...

...not to receive abundance yet, but to acknowledge what has been lost.

Naming the loss is the first act of faith.

Only those who remember the sound of silence can truly rejoice...

...when no one has to choose between healing and hunger...

You may be wondering why the locusts are called God’s great army.

The prophet sees this devastation as both judgment and mercy...

...an awakening through which God calls the people to repentance and restoration.

Even chaos is not beyond divine sovereignty.

Joel turns woe into wonder...

...the same God who allowed devastation now pours out rain and renewal.

God gives humanity free will, and when we misuse it

...when our choices build systems of oppression…

Those systems will be judged.

But God does not leave us there.

Even in hardship, God’s sovereignty remains, liberating us from the very chains we’ve forged.

To repay “the years the locusts have eaten” is God’s way of saying: what was taken from you will not have the last word.

Grace always arrives first...

...grace that gives us the courage to name what’s been devoured...

...grace that meets us in the hunger...

...and grace that begins restoring us even as we face what’s been lost.

We are called to join in that work because grace is already restoring what has been lost.

Repentance is not just naming what has been devoured…

...it’s turning toward the God who is rebuilding the ruins.

We see traces of that renewal when neighbors share food from their gardens...

...when churches become sanctuaries of healing rather than judgment...

...when the overlooked are lifted into leadership and the silenced find their voices again.

Repentance, then, is not shame but participation...

...a response to the grace that has already arrived.

It’s the daily decision to live as people who trust God’s mercy is stronger than our mistakes.

When we tell the truth about what’s been lost and dare to believe restoration has begun, we become living testimonies of God’s faithfulness.

Allow The Spirit to Stir in the Ruins

To repent is to name what has been devoured...

...but to allow the Spirit to stir in the ruins is to trust that repentance itself is God’s grace already at work...

...turning our confession into the beginning of renewal.

As Barbara read, we saw a shift in the prophet’s voice.

After the rain and the promise of restored grain, wine, and oil, a new sound rises...

...the wind...

You can almost hear it moving through the valleys and over the shattered threshing floors.

The same breath that once called creation into being now sweeps across a people still marked by loss.

Joel says...

“Then afterward

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;

Even on the male and female slaves,

in those days I will pour out my spirit.”

The Spirit is not waiting for the ruins to be cleared; it moves in them.

It stirs the dust, awakens the weary, and breathes new possibility where the air once smelled of despair.

In these verses, Joel moves from the visible restoration of the land to the spiritual renewal of the people.

The “afterward” marks a turning point…

...God’s grace, already present in the rain, now deepens into intimacy...

...poured out upon the flesh.

No longer confined to prophets, priests, or kings...

The Spirit descends upon every person regardless of status, gender, sexuality, ability, or age.

This expansive vision of divine presence anticipates Pentecost and fulfills God’s promise to dwell “in the midst of Israel.”

The Spirit of creation becomes the Spirit of inclusion.

For Wesleyans, this is sanctifying grace in motion…

...the ongoing work of the Spirit that flows from prevenient grace, which awakens us,

...and justifying grace, which restores us to right relationship.

Sanctifying grace is God’s ongoing work within us...

...deepening love,

...expanding compassion,

...and empowering every believer to join in God’s renewal of all creation.

The ruins are not obstacles to God’s work; they are the very soil where the Spirit takes root.

We have seen this Spirit move even in our own community…

...not in moments of certainty, but in moments of holy risk.

When our church shows up at the Pride Parades carrying signs that say, “All are welcome!”

That’s the Spirit stirring in the ruins of exclusion.

When we open our leadership tables to the voices once told they had no place there...

...that’s the Spirit breaking down old barriers and breathing new life into the Body of Christ.

When Queer siblings find themselves not merely welcomed but empowered to lead, preach, and serve...

...that’s Joel’s prophecy unfolding before our eyes...

The Spirit of God is still being poured out on all flesh...

...and the miracle of Pentecost continues in the streets, the sanctuaries, and the parades where love refuses to be silenced.

Kerygmatic Fulfillment

The Spirit poured out in Joel finds its echo in Luke.

Two men stand in the temple to pray...

...one proud of his purity...

...the other was aware of his need.

The Pharisee exalts himself, measuring holiness by separation...

...the tax collector beats his chest and whispers… “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

...and Jesus says, ‘This one went home justified rather than the other.”

Joel’s people had learned this truth long before...

...repentance begins not with perfection, but with honesty.

...and it’s from that place of honesty that the journey toward Christian perfection begins.

It is not a perfection of performance like the Pharisee.

...but of love, hearts made whole in grace...

...learning to love God and neighbor without pretense or pride.

The tax collector names what has been devoured within himself...

...his greed, guilt, and distance from God and neighbor...

...and in that naming, grace meets him.

That’s the gospel: God justifying not the self-assured but the self-aware...

...not the flawless but the faithful,

...not the perfect but the repentant.

The locusts of pride still swarm today...

...in systems that prize success over mercy,

in policies that protect the powerful while devouring the poor.

Yet the Spirit still moves through the ruins,

...pouring itself out on all flesh, lifting the humble, and restoring the forgotten.

There are times when the locusts of injustice swarm, devouring what sustains life and dignity.

When such occurs, Scripture reminds us that God’s Spirit stirs within those very ruins, awakening us to repentance.

That is the good news of Jesus Christ...

...that mercy triumphs over pride,

grace flows where devastation once ruled,

and the Spirit still chooses ordinary people...

...you and me… to be instruments of renewal.

In the name of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.